Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Boston Society of Film Critics have been known to surprise in the past and this year, they've opted for Juliette Lewis as Best Supporting Actress in Conviction. Bet you didn't see that under five minute surprise coming! A good day for The Fighter, Black Swan and The Social Network. Less so for The Kids Are All Right which did manage two runner up citations but, alas, runner up citations aren't really official and don't get you great FYC material. It was also a bad day for Ben Affleck's The Town. Home-town bias didn't help it to place anywhere.

Full list with commentary after the jump

PictureThe Social NetworkRunner up: Toy Story 3Director David Fincher for The Social NetworkRunner up: Darren Aronofsky for Black SwanActress Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Runner up: Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right
ActorJesse Eisenberg in The Social Network
Runner up: Colin Firth (The King's Speech) who lost by just one vote apparently.
Supporting Actress:Juliette Lewis in Conviction (read the TFE interview)Runner Up: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Supporting Actor Christian Bale in The FighterRunner Up: Andrew Garfield in The Social Network
Screenplay Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network
Runner up: Nicole Holocener for Please Give

A lot of people 'round the netare calling this a "sweep" for ...Network. It's a very strong showing yes, but a sweep? A sweep implies everything and they didn't win Supporting Actor and they won none of the technical prizes -- not even runner up -- apart from "music". Nitpicking forever! Very very strong showing, yes, but not a sweep. Several other films also won invites to Boston's wonderful Brattle Theater for the ceremony on January 30th, 2011.Think Juliette Lewis will show?

New Filmmaker (in memory of David Brudnoy)Jeff Malmberg for Marwencol
Runner up: David Michôd for Animal KingdomBest Use of Music in a Film Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network
Runner up: Carter Burwell for True GritEnsemble CastThe FighterRunner up: The Kids Are All RightDocumentaryMarwencolRunner up: Inside JobForeign Language FilmMother (South Korea)Runner up: I Am Love (Italy)Animated FilmToy Story 3Runner up: The Illusionist

Jake D -- their runner ups are so strong in each category too. I do wonder what exactly went wrong with 127 Hours. although it could always find a second wind. We're still 40+ days away from Oscar nominations.

YES! Finally some nice ensemble awards. Glad for the lack of The Town love here.btw, the Houston film critics nominations were announced as well, they have Noomi Rapace in Best Actress, Bill Murray and Jeremy Renner in Best Supporting Actor and Julianne Moore in best SUPPORTING actress.

Jin - lol. certainly a great day for THE SOCIAL NETWORK but given the Black Swan and Toy Story 3 showings... i wonder how many critics groups will let one of those slip through to take a director or pic prize from TSN.

It is strange that Black Swan wasn't cited for Use of Music, one of the few Music awards it could win for a score that relies so heavily on Swan Lake. That film would be nothing without the music on many levels. It is so well-used, I'm tempted to expand my own music category to Score-Adapted or Original so I can write about it again after my review tomorrow. Not that I need an excuse to write about film scores.

Steve -- in short, no :( sorry... Firth is just so everything Oscar looks for in a Best Actor winner (the category where they prefer people with some years on them... unlike best actress) but i loved Jesse's performance.

Eisenberg is still struggling for a nomination. No way he becomes the youngest best actor oscar winner. Firth has it in the bag... ESPECIALLY if TSN takes over the best pic race and best actor has to be TKS's big consolation prize.

adam -- i'm finally not that worried about Jesse but part of me still is nervous. I could easily see him being the Sideways big snub (remember when Paul Giamatti sat out the best actor list?) which is really too bad because he's so marvelous in the movie.